


migratory patterns

by flesh (calculus)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, POV First Person, Self-Insert, Slice of Life, Supernatural Elements, Unreliable Narrator, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 10:40:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15435258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calculus/pseuds/flesh
Summary: Adapt, or die.





	migratory patterns

**Author's Note:**

> i...... i just really got bored one day.
> 
> also, there are some dubious cantonese romanizations thrown around in here. i did my best from just how it sounds to me, so i'm not actually using the standard system, just going by ear.

There aren’t really many ways to start a story off, if you think about it. You either start in the beginning, pick a part in the middle, or blast off from the conclusion and make your way backward. Everything else is just window dressing.

That’s what I try to tell myself, anyway.

 

* * *

 

It’s the smell of rising yeast and baking dough that wakes me up. That’s what usually does it now that I’m unable to rely on the fuck-ass loud alarm ringtones of my phone. Mum gave me a clock the first few times, and I think I ended up smashing through at least four of them before she gave up. At least my body took pity on me finally and reworked its biological clock to Pavlovianly rise with the start of Mum and Popo’s baking.

Even now, it still takes me a few minutes to recognize my surroundings. The first crack of an eyelid to squint up at the ceiling has yet to lose its shock factor when my brain immediately processes the sight clear as day, the overhanging light and curtains framing my singular room window relayed in sharp focus. I’ve spent almost two decades of my life growing steadily legally blind, so waking up with perfect vision is still unfamiliar to me as is the bustling sounds of Konoha’s civilian sector rising to the slope of the morning sun.

“Yun-hui, are you up yet?” Mum’s got a set of exceptionally loud lungs for such a petite woman, and it rings clearly even from the floor beneath in the bake room. “Your brothers need to get to school before six!”

I grimace and muffle a groan with my misshapen pillow, wishing for nothing more than to be able to curl back into my sheets and tune out the noise and the rest of the goddamn morning, but the second sharp yell has me catapulting out of bed and to the bathroom immediately.

“Won Yun-hui!” my grandmother snaps through the concrete of the ceiling and plaster of the floor below, threat easily communicated through the layers.

Brushing teeth and washing my face used to be an ordeal in the morning, back then, but nobody disobeys the matriarch of the Won clan without getting their ass handed to them. I rush through the process, spitting out toothpaste and rinsing my mouth with another mouthful of water from the sink faucet and splash my face a few times before calling it a day. Using my overshirt as a makeshift towel, I dry my face and run out the bathroom to where Taiji and Heisuke are blissfully still sleeping through the hustle and bustle of the day in their shared bedroom.

“Good morning, rugrats! Time to rise and kiss the morning sun!” I shout as I slam open the door to my brothers’ room. Heisuke yelps, but it’s Taiji who falls out of the bunk bed this time at my entrance. I grin; our family motto is actually some bullshit clan strength nonsense, but my own unofficial motto is, ‘Spread the pain wherever you can,’ much to my brothers’ dismay.

“Nee-chan! Must you!” Heisuke whines, emerging from his blanket cocoon, his navy blue hair sticking out in tufts from his sleep. He spares a momentary glance at a groaning Taiji before continuing. “Why can’t you just wake us up like a normal person!”

“Yeah, really! This is the third time this week I’m gonna go to class with the same bruise on my chin,” Taiji grumbles, lifting himself up from his pained sprawl on the ground.

My expression probably doesn’t help, the shit-eating grin effortlessly sliding onto my face, but I flap a hand at them in insincere placation.

“You’re probably just gonna spin it as some training injury for the girls, anyway, Tai-tai.” I grin even wider at his sudden pink cheeks, and reach up to ruffle at Heisuke’s bedhead. “Anyway, it’s time for school. Go and get ready before Popo comes up and whoops all our asses.”

Taiji immediately jumps up and runs for the bathroom, shouting over his shoulder, “I got the bathroom first!”

“Cheater!” Heisuke hollers after him, but he’s calm when he climbs down, sharing an eye-roll with me at our brother’s antics. I lean against the bedpost of their bunk beds and watch as Heisuke pulls out a clean shirt and shorts for the day.

“I hear final exams are coming up, Susu. You ready to become genin?” I ask casually, giving my nails a quick lookover and peeling off a bit from my cuticles. Heisuke just hums in response, strapping on shin guards and digging around the weapons drawer for his holsters.

Taiji pops his head in with a toothbrush in his mouth. “Susu’s got nothing to worry about, nee-chan. He’s a shoo-in for Rookie of the Year,” he says through a mouthful of foam.

I make a face and push his head back out with a grimace. “Gross, Taiji. Go spit out your toothpaste before you speak. Mou lai mou ge, nei.”

Taiji makes a face back but goes back to the bathroom. Still, he shouts back, “I do too have manners, nee-chan! Don’t use bakwa when you know I can’t say anything back! That’s low!”

I roll my eyes at Heisuke, who just snickers, buckling down the last few locks on his arm guards. “I could’ve had sisters,” I say plainly.

Heisuke shakes his head and winks, reaching up to peck me on the cheek before heading for the bathroom. “You love us.”

“Like a disease!” I call after him, but there’s no hiding the affectionate smile on my face.

 

* * *

 

My brothers are thirteen years younger than me and (hopefully) finishing up their last year at the Academy.

They’re also the pride of the Won clan—prodigal children of Won Qin Mei, our headstrong mother, and Chu Keisuke, their father: twin geniuses at age six.

I think, probably, I should have some sort of resentment for my siblings because at age six, I was still trying to get my basic taijutsu form right without having Momo-sensei correct my stance every other minute. After all, half siblings don’t really have the same connection full-blooded siblings do—which Uchiha Suzume had said loudly while I was picking my brothers up from class from the circle of her kunoichi friends.

But, honestly, I’ve had twenty plus years to sort out my original feelings for my half sister and her father when I was still only just Erica, and Suzume was a plain bullshitter. I handed her her ass at the Chunin Exams the year after with distinct pleasure, and had the savage cheers of my brothers to buoy me through the end of my match.

And inadequacy was a concept I had years to get over in my first life. At this point, I just don’t give a shit anymore about comparisons. It helps that with the migration of the nuclear set of the main family to the Land of Fire and subsequently into Konoha, the clan pressures and expectations on me as the firstborn quieted down to a barely noticeable hum.

After all, Xing is at least three months’ travel from our home here in the village, and sending out messengers to us just to complain about my failings as the firstborn just really isn’t economically sound logic.

(Also, the current emperor apparently started to go insane at the tail end of our family’s departure, but I didn’t find out about this until several years later.)

 

* * *

 

Mum runs the Xingese bakery in the immigrant district of the civilian sector. You would think with the growing population of Xing refugees and expats, that there would be more than one bakery for us in Konoha, but apparently no one else compares to Mum’s egg tart recipe.

The egg tart recipe is a damn good recipe, though. I still have yet to find a baker in the Land of Fire whose egg tart crusts can compare to the crispiness of Mum’s.

But anyway, that means that Mum starts baking around four in the morning and customers come flocking at five, when Popo deigns to open the doors for them. By six, our humble bakeshop will have already the turnaround of at least a dozen people every fifteen minutes, popping in for breakfast and bread for the week. Before, it used to be just Mum and Popo in the bake room, frantically trying to get enough buns and tarts and bread out on the storefront to satisfy the incoming customers, but thankfully, we’ve been able to expand our forces with the rise in sales to another two bakers to work with Mum and a couple of shop-girls and Popo to run the counter.

I usually pop in to help out on leave days, but since Keisuke-san’s out on a month-long mission, I stepped in to take my brothers to school instead.

By five-forty, both Heisuke and Taiji finally pop down to the storefront to greet Popo, who give us three stern looks before nodding and passing over reject pork buns for breakfast.

“Thanks, obaa-chan!” Taiji says before shoving his mouth full of bread, and Popo unwinds enough to snort, though she does smack him on the head for his eating. Heisuke follows with his own thanks more levelly, and yanks Taiji out the door with his free hand.

“Tell kaa-chan we’re off, nee-chan,” he calls out. “We’ll start off first.”

“Okay, but keep your brother in sight, please. I don’t want to have to explain to Chun-san why his damn oranges keep getting stolen every morning you two pass by,” I warn, eyeing them both. Heisuke rolls his eyes and waves a hand dismissively and jabbing at Taiji to start walking.

“Honestly, those boys are as night and day,” Popo says dryly, pulling me out of my distant gaze. I laugh and turn back, surveying the storefront. There’s a momentary lull in the bake shop, only a few women surveying the shelves of bread, and I grin back at my grandmother, who’s taken the chance to step out from behind the pay counter to draw me into a hug.

“Zhou sun, ah popo,” I say quietly, inhaling in the fresh baked bread scent that’s become her signature perfume in the last six years. She gives me a dry kiss on the cheek and draws back.

“Zhou sun, ah lui.” She eyes me for a moment and purses her lips thoughtfully. “You look like you haven’t been sleeping very well, ah lui.”

I shrug, bringing up a hand to drag through the probable rat’s nest that my hair is masquerading as. “You know, just the regular insomnia. Ninja things.”

She snorts, giving me a knowing look before handing over a custard bun. “How times have changed since we left Xing.” She shakes her head in bemusement. “I still cannot grasp the reality that my grandchildren are child soldiers who kill people in the dark of night.”

“Well, you know. I mend fences and walk dogs too,” I rebut, cheeky, smiling in thanks for the breakfast. “I’ll be back in a few, popo.”

“Tell your mother we’re out of pork floss buns,” she says and waves me off.

 

* * *

 

Mum’s in the middle of rolling out the dough for corn rolls when I pass through the doors to the bake room. Uie-san gives me a silent nod of greeting, and Tanaka-san a quick wave, both of which I return with a smile, before I wind my way to Mum’s hunched form over the steel table.

“Zhou sun, ah ma,” I chirp, and she looks up with surprised brows and a flour-dusted face.

“Oh! Nei hai jo sun ah? Nei di hing dai ne?” she asks, and I laugh a little, pointing at the hanging clock behind her.

“It’s already past five-thirty, kaa-chan, the boys are probably halfway to the Academy by now.”

Mum blinks a bit before looking behind her shoulder to check. “Oh! I guess I lost track of time,” she says, turning back with a sheepish grin.

“Happens when you’re in a rush, it’s fine,” I assure her. “Just wanted to tell you the boys said good morning before they left.”

She chuckles, reaching out to tweak my cheeks. “Well, tell them morning for me too, then, Yun-hui.”

I mock-whine, rubbing at my cheeks. “Kaa-chan! You know your hands are covered in flour and butter!”

“Well, then it fits you, my little baobao,” she teases. I roll my eyes at the nickname.

“Anyway, I gotta go, ah ma, or Keisuke will probably skin me for letting his precious sons walk to school by themselves.” Mum frowns at me, and I grumble, rolling my eyes again. “Keisuke-san, I mean.”

“Hm, well, bring me back some peaches for later, then, baobao. Popo and I want to try out a new recipe,” she says absentmindedly, turning her attention back to the dough before her, and I reply with assent before stepping out.

 

* * *

 

It’s a little strange, how my life here almost mirrors my first life. When I had first woken as Won Yun-hui, I actually had been hard-pressed to tell something was different from usual.

Of course, my old life never had shinobi running around in a feudal rendition of a fictional Japanese-based continent, but really, whose life would?

Actually, Won Yun-hui is my real name. Romanization here apparently is a tad different from the English standard, given that English doesn’t actually exist in Naruto-verse, but Chinese does. Which, when you think about it, makes a bit of sense, because Naruto is based off of Japanese culture, and the surrounding countries around it would probably exist in this universe too, given how influenced Japan was by Chinese culture. Albeit, of course, a little bit more mythical and fantastical.

I digress. Anyway, what passes for Chinese here—Xingese, and my own dialect, bakwa, the equivalent of Yuehai dialect in my old life—is the exact mirror of what I used to be. Though I had gone by an English name in my first life, as was the norm of most second-generation immigrant children, my Chinese name had always been Huang Yun-hui.

And here, I am just that.

I traded in my two-toned cultural identity—Chinese-American—for another—Xingese refugee turned Konoha citizen and shinobi—and a fractured family with overbearing pressures and expectations for another, though a little more lightened. I suppose, it made things easier for me; I accepted myself as Won Yun-hui because I was her, even though this life was not mine, and that acceptance in turn made it easier for me to just become.

But, let me tell you: living fanfiction in reality is no cakewalk.

 

* * *

 

I admit, I had to cheat a little to catch up to my brothers. But one shunshin later, and I’m next to Taiji head-wrestled under Heisuke’s arm, stealing the orange Heisuke’d been tossing a moment ago.

“You guys are literally the worst at listening comprehension,” I complain, pocketing the orange away, giving them both the evil eye.

Heisuke laughs nervously, and lets Taiji go, pushing him over so that there’s more space between him and me. “The orange was Tai’s idea!”

“Was not! Heisuke was the one to distract Chun-jiji while I took the first orange! Then he took the second one while Chun-jiji tried to chase after me!” Taiji defends, scowling. 

I rub my forehead. “I seriously wish kaa-chan had girls instead.” At the offended open mouths of the boys, I point to the Academy in sight, cutting them off with a look. “March, boys. Don’t make me have to hogtie you both again.”

They click their mouths shut and walk even faster, backs straightened and shoulders stiff. I hold back my grin, but only just barely; the spectacle last time had damn near set records in the weekly village gossip. Taiji still can’t look at the Uchiha officers without turning a bright plum color.

 

* * *

 

The walk is only about fifteen minutes from the civilian sector over from where we’re located in the immigrant district, and since I met up with my devil brothers about ten minutes later, I ended up only having to escort them for a measly five minutes, much to their relief and my mock displeasure.

Still, the boys make it in time to the Tower with just two minutes to spare, and they quickly wave me off with a shout of “Don’t kill anyone today, nee-chan! Remember: boys don’t like ill-tempered women!” before rushing inside to escape my wrath. I scowl, but retribution will have to come later.

I nod to fellow colleagues milling about the area, but I don’t have to report in for duty to the Hokage for at least another two days, so I take advantage and pop by the memorial for a quick visit.

At this time of day, the epitaph is taken up by Hatake Kakashi’s routine haunt, so I go over to the civilian cemetery first. I admit, seeing the fictional copynin in the flesh for the first time had been quite an awesome sight, especially given that I’d been almost six at the time and still half-mad with grief. Now, with thirteen years as buffer from the tiny wide-eyed waifling I had been, seeing Kakashi’s familiar slouching silhouette does nothing more than just register peripherally in my priorities.

The stone, when I stop in front, is a little weathered from the past few days of rain. I wince and bow my head quickly down in apology.

“Dui mm zhu, ah ba. Ngo yau mm gei dduk lei zup hou nei go mou bei ah,” I mutter, crouching down with a grimace, my thigh muscles protesting the strain. I quickly wipe off the dirt and debris from the stone with my palm as best as I can.

Talking to my dad is always a bit tricky. He’s been dead fourteen years now, and yet I still feel the guilt well up when I find myself at a loss for the right words in his native tongue. They say that the spirits will be able to understand, regardless of the language you speak to them because death transcends all boundaries, but in my personal experience, unless the person had known the language before in their lifetime, then even in their death they’re not going be able to know it.

Still, I try my best, scrounging up the rudimentary bakwa I have left in my grasp, and take out Heisuke’s ‘borrowed’ orange and the pork bun from Popo. Gently, I set them both down next to the incense holder, the joss sticks half crumbling from frequent lightings. With a quick tiger seal, I light up the sticks and press them back into the pot. I press my palms together and close my eyes, dropping my chin parallel to my chest.

“…Ngo hai mong nei hou sum, ah ba,” I say after a moment, giving up on the words for something more eloquent. “Bou yau ngo di hing dai ah. Bou yau ah ma tong mai ah popo.” I take in a breath, and then in the language I know best now, I say, “I’ll come home soon.”

 

* * *

 

Kakashi’s memorial visits can range from three hours to two days, depending on his mood. Today must be one of his better days, given his lax set of shoulders at my approach.

“Good morning, Hatake-san,” I greet quietly, giving him an unnoticed head nod. Kakashi just hums, hands jammed in his pockets, as he surveys the epitaph in front, eye somber as usual.

“You tell your father good morning already?” he asks, bland and without nuance, like he’s reading words of a grocery list, and I smile.

“Like you’d even notice with how long you always stand in front of them,” I retort, coming up to his left, enough that he can see me in his peripheral vision. I hold my hands out by my sides, loose and relaxed.

“Mm, Yun-chan, I notice everything,” he replies, sliding his eye over with a pleasant tone. I huff out a laugh, but it’s true. It’s hard to pull something under Kakashi’s constant vigilance.

“Aren’t you late for a meeting or something?” I ask back, crinkling my eyes up. I answer my own question immediately, not waiting for his response. “Wait, that’s a stupid question. Of course you are. You’re always late.”

“Maa, maa, Yun-chan, trying to get rid of me already?”

I laugh again, and hold my hands out in a manner of mock supplication. “Just want to get my chance with the memorial stone, is all.”

“Surely there’s enough to share between the two of us,” he says dryly, and I shrug.

“I wouldn’t know: your fat ass keeps hogging up the epitaph,” I say sweetly, and he turns his head at that, tilting his head in disappointment.

“Yun-chan, it’s not polite to discuss a man’s girth in front of him,” he admonishes, shaking his head at me.

“Oh my god, senpai, please just leave so I can have my chance to talk to them in peace,” I say, rolling my eyes and making a shooing gesture with my hand. “Take mercy on your poor victim and go to whatever you’re late to already.”

Kakashi’s cloth mask keeps his face a mystery, but after thirteen years, I know when the man’s pouting at me. “But, Yun-chan, it’s not even nine yet!”

I cover my face with a hand.

 

* * *

 

Taiji and Heisuke are the pride and joy of the Won clan—and if Keisuke had it his way, they’d be the next heirs to clan head. But, that role falls to me instead.

Though, traditionally, we are a matriarchal clan, where all power resides within the head matriarch, the deciding factor of who becomes the next leader is not being the firstborn female of the main family. If it were, there’d be so much political intrigue and clan politics over who gets what and a shit ton more drama that probably would’ve kept us still in Xing. Instead, for us, the next clan leader is whoever inherited our founding head’s bloodline.

That person is me, much to Keisuke’s displeasure though he’d swear up and down he didn’t care for any of our family politics if Mum ever asked him.

(But tough tater tots to him anyway because the genetics of our clan usually mean that the inheritors of Won Sun Mei’s gift are females since our DNA apparently holds a specific gene that triggers the bloodline. Or so I’ve gathered from my grandfather’s pedantic lectures. It’s all Greek to me, otherwise.)

One of the reasons why the Hokage had originally allowed our entry into Konoha besides Mum’s marriage to Keisuke is because of this bloodline. I didn’t know it at the time, but my talents were something coveted by the few who even knew about the Xing nobility, much less the Won clan history. In Konoha, only the Professor and a few trusted men under his command are allowed knowledge of my family history, and it’s the reason why I don’t want to have share the epitaph with Kakashi—even though I’m fairly certain at this point he’s probably got a good idea of what I can do from my frequent visits and probable observation.

 

* * *

 

I eye the yellow-haired man casually watching us both with amusement, chin propped up by his hands and elbows on top of the epitaph, and roll my eyes, wrinkling my nose at him. If my father could see me at this moment, he’d probably whack me on the head for my disrespect.

“Yondaime-sama, your student is a giant buttface,” I say plainly, giving Kakashi the stink-eye. I make sure to keep my face turned at the stone and not at the Fourth, who’s just chuckling to himself, but Kakashi stiffens anyway, dropping his stance for something more guarded.

Minato shrugs easily, dimpling at my demeanor. “Kakashi-kun’s always been too nosy for his own good,” he reminisces, and I roll my eyes again.

“I just want to talk to you guys without having someone breathe over my neck,” I whine, holding back the urge to stamp my foot childishly on the ground.

“You know I always come with you anyway,” Minato points out, drawing away from the stone, “so it’s not like you really have to talk to me solely here.”

“But that’s just because you’re a nosy fuck yourself,” I mutter under my breath, ignoring Kakashi’s sharp glance and Minato’s loud bark of laughter. But I put my palms together and pray silently, making short conversation with the rest of the names listed on the epitaph, unwilling to say anything else aloud with Kakashi within hearing.

Minato walks through the stone, the epitaph phasing through his translucent body until he becomes solid again, and gives Kakashi a head ruffle, though his hand doesn’t actually touch the copynin. Still, Kakashi gives a shiver, probably feeling the coldness passing over his head, and I hide a smile.

After a few moments, weathering Kakashi’s intent stare and Minato’s cheerful whistle, I end my prayer with an internal eye-roll and a parting to the spirits. I slide a sideways glance at Minato, raising an eyebrow in lieu of actual speech, and he nods, giving me the okay to leave.

“Well, Hatake-san, it’s been fun as always, but I really must be going,” I say with a brisk clap to do away with the awkward silence. Kakashi narrows his eye at me, but I smile innocuously, already edging away. “Gotta go buy some peaches before our esteemed Clan Head sends her goons after me for being tardy.”

“That’s hardly any way to speak about your grandmother,” Minato admonishes, frowning, “much less someone so gentle and kind as Won Sun-sun.” I can’t help it; I break my eye contact with Kakashi to stare incredulously at Minato.

“Please don’t hit on my grandmother, sir,” I blurt aloud, horrified. Minato stifles a chuckle at my expression, but it’s Kakashi who answers me, confused and suspicious.

“I didn’t,” he retorts, steely-eyed. I cough into my hand, flustered, as Minato’s shoulders shake from repressed laughter, and nod.

“Ah, yes, of course, Hatake-san. I didn’t mean to, uh, accuse you of such…salacious—” I glare at Minato here “—actions. You would never intentionally come onto a seventy-three-year-old woman,” I assure him, and bow quickly. “Nonetheless, I must be off!”

Before he replies, I turn about-face and shunshin away, red-faced, with Minato following behind in a ghost of laughter.

 

* * *

 

The talents of the Won clan are few and varied, but what brought us originally into the nobility’s circle was our ability to raise and disseminate spirits. Of course, such an occult ability made us one of the most feared clans in Xing, but at the time, his Imperial Highness had held us in wide regard after our founder, Won Sun Mei, successfully stopped an internal coup with just the raise of a hand and the calling of the previous Dowager Empress to scatter the dissenters.

Now, I use my talents to talk to the dead militant leaders of Konohagakure for fun while I go grocery shopping.

As things go, this sounds mostly on par for the course.

 

* * *

 

Minato’s still laughing when I arrive back in the civilian sector, landing down flatly on the tiled roof of one of the larger apartment buildings. I glare at him and cross my arms.

“Yondaime-sama, please don’t embarrass me in front of your student like that,” I say, aware that I’m just sulking at this point. “It was hard enough trying to get away as it were.”

He waves a hand, pearlescent in the eye of the sun, apologetic. “My apologies, Yun-chan. It’s not everyday I get to enjoy myself like this,” he says with a charming grin. I roll my eyes and hop down to the ground, using the side of the next building as my jumping point.

“You’re a gigantic liar, Yondaime-sama, you do this every time,” I mutter, but I breathe it out, the annoyance fading away as I walk towards the market area. I turn to him with a quirked smile. “What shall we buy for obaa-chan today, then?”

Minato’s eyes twinkle, ghost blue and bright, and he shrugs, walking in step with me. “How about a bouquet of roses for my favorite Sun-sun?” he teases, laughing when my elbow jab phases through his ribs.

“I’m gonna put you in time-out, mister,” I grumble, digging through my pockets for ryo. To my credence, I find a handful of smaller coins, enough to buy at least two bushels of peaches. “Oh bless, past-Yun-hui.”

“Ah, I see you’ve been watching your purse better,” Minato says approvingly, folding his arms into the wide sleeves of his fire-embroidered slip. I chance a rude gesture at him as I sidestep a pickpocket and shoulder past a few middle-aged civilians walking past.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m always thrifty,” I say aloud, ignoring the odd looks I get from the other market-goers. The idea of having any bit of self-consciousness when speaking to spirits gradually left me as I got older, and at almost twenty years of age in this life, I’ve become inured to the stares of others. It helps that I spent the first half of my life watching Popo do the same in public and private, conversing in bright daylight with phantoms only she could see.

Minato pats me on the head patronizingly, and I scowl, shriveling away from the cold dearth of life. “Of course, Yun-chan, of course.”

 

* * *

 

The market center is overrun with people at this time of day, the morning crowd getting in their produce and family wives buying in stock what they need for the week. I grimace and elbow my way through the street, jostled by crying infants in mothers’ arms and haggling elders.

“I should’ve just stopped by at Chun-san’s stall instead,” I grumble to myself, dodging children and adults alike.

Minato hums beside me, content to let any unsuspecting villagers to walk through him and recoil with gasping shudders. “Your brothers stole some fruit again, didn’t they?” he says knowingly, not even bothering to put a question in his tone.

I sigh and nod, picking my way to Jiro-san’s wayward fruit stall, bracketed between a fishmonger’s pallet and Yamanote-san’s more expensive produce shop.

“I keep telling them to stop, but they just can’t seem to keep their sticky fingers to themselves,” I complain, nodding a hello to old Yamanote-san, who’s hovering by the entrance of his shop. Jiro-san, on the other hand, usually likes to sit in the cool shaded comfort under the side awning of Hongo-san’s apartment complex just beyond the main street of the market center.

“Do they get caught?” Minato asks thoughtfully, tapping at his chin. I make a face and just barely restrain jabbing a finger in the air at him.

“That’s not the point, Yondaime-sama, you’re a terrible influence.” I ignore him for the row of crates stacked up front of Jiro-san’s stall, and start pressing through the fruit display for the best peaches.

“That would only make sense if your boys could actually see me, though,” he says, amused, but hangs back, content to let me pick and choose.

“I’m gonna leave a rotten orange at the Cenotaph for you next time,” I say, rolling my eyes, and pick up a particularly large fuzzy white-pink peach. It’s firm but gives enough under a perfunctory squeeze, and I nod to myself, putting it aside in one of the handy paper bags sitting on the self-serve ledge of Jiro-san’s stall.

“Aw Yun-chan, don’t be like that,” Minato cajoles lightly behind me. “You’ll make Tobirama-sama think it’s for him instead.”

I roll my eyes again but flap a dismissive hand over my shoulder. “I’ll write a note to go with it.”

**Author's Note:**

> my biggest thing to explore is just the other cultures outside of the hidden villages and their surrounding countries. some places are taken from other existing bodies of work (like xing of fma, but only in name), and others will be amalgamations.
> 
> the i-see-dead-people-trope came from weialala's sharingan rising series, which is a fantastically built world, and y'all should def read it if u haven't :')


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